


She Took Everything But Her Ghost

by scullyphile



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Drinking to Cope, F/M, Friendship, Lack of Communication, Love, Nonverbal Communication, Post-Break Up, Sad, Whiskey & Scotch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 18:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4533411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyphile/pseuds/scullyphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has been worried about them being broken up in the revival. I wanted to write that moment when it happened, and some of how they felt after. There is still hope, but at this time their relationship is hurting, and they are lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Took Everything But Her Ghost

Mulder sat alone in his cluttered living room, drinking whiskey. He hadn’t yet turned on a lamp, and the sun was setting. He didn’t even have real ice cubes. Filling the tray with water and putting it back in the freezer was not listed under skills on his resume. His fucking resume. He took another drink. The colorful plastic pieces of fruit in the glass hit him in the lips. He’d found them in the door of the freezer when he’d gone looking for ice. When had Scully bought these? It was totally out of character for her to buy plastic fruit re-freezable ice cubes. He would have to ask her next time he–but he didn’t know when he would see her next. He wasn’t even sure where she was.

He got a whiff of his own smell, his armpits, his feet, and now his whiskey breath mixed together in some sort of loneliness cologne. He couldn’t stop himself from remembering the night she had left.

She’d walked in on him pretty much looking like he did now. That night he’d had a beer instead of whiskey, but he was out of beer. He hadn’t gotten up the strength to go out and buy more, so he had dug this out of the back of the cupboard.

—

On the night in question, she had come in and found him in the dark, beer bottles everywhere. She hit one with her foot as she entered, and it skittered across the wood floor, hit the leg of the couch, and ricocheted off in some unknown direction. It was probably still wherever it had landed.  
“Mulder, what the hell? Are you drunk again?”

—  
As Mulder sat alone in the farm house, Scully was driving. She had decided to just keep driving for as long as it took–or until she got too tired. She figured that she would get tired long before she would stop feeling like she wanted to cry for hours in the fetal position. 

Scully found herself driving north and was reminded of the vacation she had spent in Maine years back. She had gotten sucked into that awful case, but she had had a good time. She knew wouldn’t this time.

–

Their fight had been about a lot of things, but mostly it centered around each one being the other’s entire world. They wanted whole worlds, friends who cared about them. Scully wanted to travel. Scully wanted to forget about the truth crusade and just go to France, or anywhere. Mulder felt very isolated. He had never gotten over the loss of the gunmen, his only friends in the world besides Scully. He couldn’t just flat out tell her that she wasn’t enough, that he wanted more people to talk to. It felt like it would be betraying their love.

“I’ve had some beers. So what, Scully? So fucking what.”

She sighed. Communication had always been their problem. Non-verbal communication they had down. Out in the field, in their days as partners in the FBI, it had saved their lives countless times. When it came to verbally communicating, however, it was more difficult, forced. Sure, they tried to make it right, tried to improve several times, but there was always this tendency on his part to bottle his feelings. For her part, she was extremely stubborn. He always had to be the first to admit he was wrong after an argument. She would walk off in a huff and sit in another room with her fists balled up in anger until he finally gave up and went to see where she had gone. Then he would apologize and she would feel the stubbornness start to get soft around the edges.

Lately he had stopped coming to find her. She wanted to ask him so badly why he refused to chase her anymore, why he didn’t even seem that interested in chasing the truth anymore, but she was afraid of his answer.  She should have just asked, and now she had come home to this. 

“Yes you have, Mulder. You’ve had quite a few beers from what I can see, which isn’t much. It’s really dark in here.”

“Why’d you leave earlier?”

“I went to get groceries.” She didn’t have any groceries in her arms. In truth, she’d walked out in a huff again after a fight, and she had told herself she was going to get groceries, even though she wasn’t sure she would be coming back. 

“I guess you forgot your list.” He said, waving his arm drunkenly at her. “Since you didn’t buy anything.”

“I drove around thinking. I thought maybe… I thought, well–I almost left you, Mulder.” Her honesty surprised her. She couldn’t go on or she might start to cry. Her face felt hot already.

“Why did you come back?”

“I…”

“To pack your things?” His voice sounded gruff, mean. “Go pack your THINGS, Scully. Leave me here. Just. Pretend I don’t love you anymore.”

“You want me to go?”

He was quiet. She couldn’t see him in the dark, and it bothered her. Their non-verbal communications were cut off.

“If you tell me to go, I don’t know when or if I will come back. Is that what you’re telling me to do?” Her mind screamed: don’t tell me to do that, Mulder. Don’t fucking tell me that. I’ll do it this time.

“I want. You. To. GO.”

–

Why had he said that to her just then? To protect her from his own unhappiness? That’s what he thought at the time. Scully would be better off. He deserved to be unhappy. Which he was, even when she was there, although it was not her fault. He loved her, just as much as he had ever loved her. It wasn’t that at all. 

Mulder filled his glass again and drank it down. He sat holding the empty glass, bent over with his elbows resting on his knees, his head tilted down, his eyes on the floor. He looked at those stupid bits of plastic as tears landed on his wrists.

–

Why had he said that to her at that moment, if he had known it meant she’d have to leave? There was no other choice. He’d basically said he didn’t love her anymore, although she had known it was bullshit, or at least felt it was bullshit. She wanted to get away, to run. Her own love was still very strong, but he was toxic. She was suffocating.

She pulled over to the side of the road to think, to wipe away the tears that had started to fall, making driving difficult. When she composed herself she picked up her cellphone and dialed.

“Hello, Scully. Is something wrong?”

“Yes. I need you to go check on him. I–I can’t. Please make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“Dana, what happened?”

“Just make sure he knows you’re still his friend.” She paused, but he didn’t respond. He was still waiting for her to answer his question.  "Thank you,“ she said instead and hung up. 

–

There was a knock at the door. Mulder didn’t bother getting up. He knew it wasn’t Scully; she would just come in. And if it wasn’t Scully he didn’t give a damn who it was.

"I don’t want any!”

“Mulder, for God’s sake, it’s dark out. I’m no salesman, and I’m freezing my ass off out here. Just let me in.”

“Skinner?”

Mulder got up, finally, and opened the door.


End file.
